With 50 years of history behind them, the CSM is one of the most important sports centers of Switzerland. In 2012, when he decided to expand its offering with an indoor infrastructure, it addressed the experience and solutions Mondo.

Youth sports and elite

The National Youth Sports Centre Tenero (CST) is a top-level dedicated to youth sports. "Our target group are young people between 10 and 20 years old. Within this age group, there are also those guys who think the sport elite, who want to prepare for the high level, for a performance, dreaming of participating in the Olympics or international competitions, "said Bixio Caprara, director of CST. With over forty sports available within it, the center is often used by athletes and national teams can train in perfect conditions. "At the National Youth Sports Centre in Tenero, there are young people, who are with the schools, that participate in sports clubs sports in weekly organized in the context of school education. Or, during school holidays, are now or sports federations, the cantonal level and national level ", confirms Caprara. Always ready to improve, in 2012 the CST has decided to expand its offering by acquiring infrastructure for the practice of indoor sports.

Warehouse fitness

"There was the need for an indoor facility. The CAST has always been a place mainly in the summer, but thanks to the new infrastructure will be more and more popular even in the winter, "said Caprara. The site chosen for the extension is located in the industrial area of the municipality of Gordola, just minutes from the National Youth Sports Center in Tenero. Inside the stable Regazzi, it was decided to convert a room of 2500 square meters, located on the first floor, in an infrastructure for athletics. "It spoke of an industrial structure that has been emptied due to the reduction of work. So this is a conversion of a place that was not initially aimed at the hosting of sporting activities, "said Roberto Franz, head of Mondo track sector.

An ad hoc solution

Since this is a facility that was not intended for sports and being on the first floor of a building, the project for the conversion required special attention, especially in the installation of sports flooring choice used to cover the original floor of the hall.
"Our suggestion was to not glue the sports flooring directly over the existing floor. The industrial warehouses, in fact, have the structural expansion joints that can move. If we had decided to glue directly to the floor, we could produce failures to the system, if the construction had moved or settled, "says Roberto Franz. The choice of Mondo, approved by the CST, was to install the rubber sheet flooring on a underlayment. "We used the Mondotrack rubber sports flooring, we use the same surface from the Beijing Olympics in 2008. As a technical solution, instead of pasting the material directly to the substrate, which is not possible given the existing conditions, we have created a self-laying solution, coupling a Mondo Everlay stabilizing underlayment that allows it to adapt to the existing, that was not too invasive on the structure, "adds Igor Papini, Mondo Area Manager.

A floating floor

The sports floor, then, was glued to the Everlay underlayment, instead of installation on the concrete slab, thus creating a custom-made flooring installed on the underlayment. "Everlay is a sheet of fiberglass and vinyl material that has the function to stabilize the floor finish that is applied above. The product, whose is available in 2 meter roll lengths, is laid on the surface, previously prepared to be perfectly flat and smooth. Subsequently the rubber that is laid, through a two-component polyurethane adhesive, is bonded to the Everlay, so as to realize a kind of surface to measure. In this way is achieved a flooring which, while having the stability of a glued floor screed, however, is floating, "explains Igor Papini. This process allows the rubber flooring to be easily removable. "If after 10 or 15 years, for example, you wanted to restore the space back to industrial use, the floor can be removed and rolled up, without having to demolish the screed" adds Papini.

The results

Thanks to the Mondo flooring, what was once a hall, is now a modern practice gym for indoor athletics. On the inside there is a 80 m track with six lanes, a platform for the long and triple jump, pits and equipment for the high jump and pole vault. In addition, the new infrastructure allows for training during the winter, thanks to two areas with a platform dedicated to the shot put, discus and hammer. "A point of great excellence of this fact is that during the winter you can have workouts disciplines that would normally be done outdoors: weight, discus and hammer. To allow this a designated area protected by nets was created, "said Franz. There is also a golf practice area, also with safety net, designed for beginners who want to practice their swing. The property is complete with four changing rooms and classroom theory. A structure of the first level, will host training camps for national Swiss Athletics and will also be used by the Federation of Ticino Athletics (FTAL).

The raised platform

For the long and triple jump platform was chosen a solution used in many sports arenas. "The platform of the long and the triple is usually provided with a hole in the ground. In this case, since we have to do with an insole, and we stand on the first floor, we decided to construct a metal structure, a containment cage for the sand, raised above the sub base. The footboard installed is able to rise up to 30/40 cm, allowing the sporting activity that there has been a need to create a hole for the sand, "recalls Papini. The raised platform provides another advantage, the ability to move easily to other places. "The uniqueness of the raised platform for the long jump and triple, without pit embedded in the floor, allows a facility to create a platform that can be moved to other places. Shortly after his installation, in fact, we moved in Mendrisio for a meeting of the long jump, which was held in the square of a shopping center, "recalls Caprara. A different solution, however, has been the platform of choice for the pole vault. "It was important to choose the correct installation of the Deposit pocketed rod, which has been positioned in a particular point of the beam cross section transverse of the plane, to be able to be built flush with the ground and not having to create, in this case, a raised footboard, "recalls Franz.